T-Mobile USA Inc. wades further into wireline pool

Looking to cut into its rivals’ wireless-wireline bundles, T-Mobile USA Inc. announced it will expand its wireline calling plan nationwide. The carrier’s @Home offering allows T-Mobile USA customers to place unlimited nationwide and long-distance calls over an Internet connection for an extra $10 per month.
Set to launch July 2, the new service will allow customers to port their existing home phone number to the Internet-calling service, which includes features such as call waiting, caller ID, three-way conferencing, voicemail, call conferencing and others.
“For years, the traditional landline companies have been great at consistently delivering one thing to their customers – a high monthly bill,” said Robert Dotson, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA. “T-Mobile is now delivering the best priced home phone service in America for our existing and future customers. In addition, we are not only delivering the traditional features of a landline service, we are also including the innovative features consumers love in their more widely used mobile phones.”
T-Mobile USA began testing the offering in Dallas and Seattle earlier this year. The carrier said that 97% of customers in those markets subsequently dropped their wireline calling service in favor of @Home.
Customers can access T-Mobile @Home with their corded or cordless phones as long as they have an existing broadband Internet connection and the T-Mobile @Home HiPort Wireless Router, which runs $50 with a two-year service agreement.
The announcement is the latest move by T-Mobile USA to integrate wireline calling into its portfolio of services. The carrier also offers a cellular/Wi-Fi service called HotSpot@Home.